Pictures - Mountain Climbing!

I've finally gotten around to uploading photos from my camera! Of course that means I found other forgotten photos. Ha ha ha.

Instead of uploading everything here, I've made a flickr account and you can view photos there. Also, if I have a future large dump of photos, I will put them there rather than cluttering up the blog. I know, I know, the pictures make it interesting... But it's a pain in the butt to upload them all individually. Eventually I might switch to picasa, as it is a google application, unlike flickr, which is Yahoo. We shall see. This will all become easier once I get real internet at my apartment!

So click the links to be instantly transported through the internets to the appropriate pictures!

My first foray into Japanese Mountain Climbing, Mt. Tsukuba:

Mt. Tsukuba

My second climb, Mt. Jimbao and Mt. Takao:

Mt. Jimbao and Mt. Takao


And the most complete photoset, the photos from my trip to the Kita Alps!

Kita Alps

Some pictures from the mountains

These are some photos from the students. I will upload my pictures soon!

Japanese Northern (Kita) Alps

This past week I took a trip with the wondafogill club (mountain climbing club) to the Northern Alps (北アルプス). It was a 4 day, 3 night affair and it was lots of fun. I learned that I probably can't do group hikes because I like to go at my own pace and by my own schedule. I also learned that most Japanese are totally into the gear and accessories. I think they spend hundreds if not thousands on clothing and equipment for hiking, not including camping gear...

Day 1: Departure

We had to leave soooo early. I left my apartment at around 5:40 am and woke up at 5:00 am. Blah. In Japan this past week, Obon was occurring. This is a week long holiday/festival/event that occurs every August. The gist of it is that during Obon you welcome the spirits of your deceased ancestors back to the family home from their graves. Apparently the spirits travel by way of river, riding on an eggplant or a cucumber. They come back to the ancestral home for three days, so many Japanese people travel to their ancestral homes to welcome and pay respects to the spirits of their deceased family members. Essentially, it's a terrible time to travel, because everyone is travelling somewhere... So anyway, we left really early and the group met up at 6:30 am to start the trip. All the girls were outfitted in cute mountain climbing clothes, carrying huge backpacks which I doubted they could manage (they surprised me though!). I, on the other hand, looked very uncute, as always. I just can't stand the thought of spending so much money on climbing clothes that will get really dirty and gross... But I digress. Anyway, we started our journey all together at 6:30 am and eventually arrived at our destination, Kamikochi (上高地), at around 2 pm. During that time I found myself standing on the train a lot because it was soooo busy. Good just before a hiking trip. Haha. Kamikochi is a national park. It's gorgeous! It is nestled in the mountains at 1505 m. From there we hiked an easy trail of about 11 km to our first stop, Yokō (横尾), we stayed at a  mountain lodge (yamagoya, 山小屋) there. The elevation at the lodge is 1620 m. We arrived there around 5 (ish) pm, set down our packs in our room and entered the bath (ofuro; お風呂) toute suite. It was a little awkward for me because I was with the students, but I did my best not to see them naked or let them see me naked. Nudity in the bath is an accepted thing in Japan, but coming from prudish Canada, it's something I'm highly uncomfortable with when I know the other people in the bath. After our bath, we had dinner, hamburg (Japanese adaptation of hamburgers, they don't have buns), fish cakes, miso soup, salad, rice, and pickles. Of course I didn't eat the rice. I was really excited for dark so we could look at the stars. I haven't seen a nice night time sky for a long time and I wasn't disappointed. There were so many stars and we could see the Milky Way! I saw satellites and many shooting stars. We went to bed pretty early, 9 pm but we were up at 4 am to look at the stars again. At 4 am we could see a cool cluster of stars, I'm not sure of its name. The night sky is different in Japan, all the constellations were in the wrong places!

Day 2: The Climb

Official wake up time was around 5 am, but I had been away on and off since 4 am. We had breakfast at 5:30 am. It was a traditional Japanese breakfast, miso soup, rice, salmon, omelette, pickles and salad. Pretty yummy. After breakfast we packed our bags and set out at 6:30 am. This day was truly a day if climbing. Our first ascent was to Mount Chogatake (蝶ケ岳), 2625 m. It was about 3.5 hours of climbing up. It was hard after just waking up, but I was placed at the back, so going was slow, and it wasn't to difficult. We kept climbing to a peak at 2664 m, called Chousou (蝶倉), meaning butterfly spear. The name is fitting because there were tonnes of butterflies! It was gorgeous. From there we climbed down and then up to Mt. Jonendake (常念岳) at 2857 m elevation. The ascent to Jonendake was very hard, but fun. I got to a little rock climbing. The rock was perfect for climbing because it was very grippy. I had fun, but the trail was very difficult, so I think the students suffered a bit. From Jonendake, we had to descend a very tough trail (it looked like a rock slide) to get to our lodging for the night. The going was very slow, which I hate because I'd rather tear down the trail, it's harder, more tiring and even a little more dangerous to go so slowly in my opinion. The heavier and slower your steps, the more chance to slip. Needless to say, on the descent, there was lots of slipping, by me too, on account of being at the back. I guess I'm surprised at the lack of agility and balance that the students have. I expect them to be more mountain goat-like, but they were very slow and tentative. After a grueling 50 ish minutes of downhill on loose gravel, we reached our lodging for the night at Jonen-goya (常念小屋), at 2466 m elevation (a 300 m descent!). This lodge was a lot more rustic than the first one. I guess it's to be expected, because it was in a more remote location. I don't know how they get their supplies... It had water, electricity and toilets (Japanese outhouse style... Squatty potties - especially cruel after a day of hiking. It hurt my thighs so much to use them!). The toilets and power outlets were pay per use. Crazy. They sold soft drinks, ice cream and beer. Of all things to have in the middle of nowhere, there is always beer, in cans and Nama beer (on tap), and edamame. The beer was pretty expensive. There were no baths at this lodge :( I was filthy but we had to make do with sponge baths using wet tissues. Hahaha. Dinner was again, hamburg, fish cakes, rice, miso soup, salad and pickles, plus little mini jellies for dessert. Once it got dark, we went out again to look at the stars. From our vantage point on the mountain, we could see fireworks from an Obon celebration. In the village below. Fireworks and beautiful stars. It was quite cold at night so I couldn't stay out too long. I stayed long enough to see Venus, some satellites and a shooting star though. Then I left the others to go brush my teeth before the rush for the sink. We were in bed by 8:30 pm. Lights went out at 9 pm, but I fell asleep before that. I was sooo tired. I didn't even say good night, because I fell asleep so fast! I think we walked about 13 km on day 2.

Day 3: The Long Haul

Day 3 started off with a 4:30 am wake up call. I lounged about until 4:45 am and then got dressed and went down with the girls for breakfast at 5 am. Breakfast was Japanese style again. We had whole trout (head, eyes, and fins all attached... They were tiny though), scrambled egg and ham, pickles, salad, miso soup and rice. We departed at 6:30 am and climbed up and down along the ridges to Mt. Higashi-Tenjo (東天井岳), at 2814 m. I think it was en route to this peak that we encountered snow!! When there was snow that was easily accessible, I laid down on it, as on a beach. It felt so good. From there we hiked up and down along the ridges to Mt. Otenshodake (大天井岳), at 2921m! This was the highest mountain we climbed. Before we got there, we dumped our packs off at Daitensou (大天荘) to go to the summit and then we returned and had lunch. We had to bring our lunches and snacks with us, I being somewhat knowledgeable about proper nutrition for such activities and also being raised as a camper and hiker, brought trail mix, beef jerky, seaweed and dried plums, and soy joy bars (high protein energy bar type things, I brought peanut soy joy bars), this proved adequate for snacks and lunches. It kept me well supplied with steady energy. I also brought those nuun tablets for my water. I mixed the smarties that Nancy and John brought me and ate the beef jerky as well. Canada was definitely with me on this trip. The students brought not so smart snacks: candy, chips, cookies, bread, rice balls and cup noodles for lunches. I feel like most people in Japan make these mistakes. But what can you do? Any way, on this day, everyone ate noodles for lunch, except me. I felt odd, but oh well. After lunch, we departed along the ridges to our next lodging, Enzansou (燕山荘), at 2704 m. The clouds had rolled in during lunch and the sky was very threatening looking... Sure enough it started to rain. We got to our destination before long and stowed our bags. The rain stopped pretty soon and we were able to make our last ascent to Mt. Tsubakurodake (燕岳), at 2763 m. This last part took about 30 minutes up and down. The students were very tired but the strange rock formations and the views were very rewarding. This as well as the knowledge that it was the last climb up made the students pretty happy. Also, we didn't have our packs, making the climbing much easier. I didn't bring my camera because it was cloudy and rainy. I should have because it was still breathtaking at the top. After that little side trip we returned, got cleaned up and enjoyed the gorgeous toilets at the lodge. I finally was able to relieve myself properly on a western style toilet. At the other lodges we also had to dispose of toilet paper in a bucket, but here it was fine to throw it in the toilet, making everything smell nicer. We also didn't have to pay per use, so I used the beautiful bathrooms as many times as I could before we left. We ate dinner at 6 pm and everyone was starving. for dinner we had... hamburg! hahaha. I had never deigned to eat hamburgs in the past year and the. All of the sudden, I ate them three times in a row. There was also white fish, delicious steamed vegetables, salad, pickles, miso soup and rice, with oranges and almond jelly for dessert. It was delicious. During dinner there was a man who talked to us about the food, the lack of rice, the number of people staying (it was more than expected), and the etiquette for wild life and the surrounding area (at least I think it was about that... It was all in Japanese so I couldn't catch it all). After his speech, he played an alpenhorn! Crazy! After dinner we set up our beds and I storm watched for a bit. There was a fantastic thunder and lightning storm. The mountain was surrounded by clouds and you could hardly see anything but the flash of lightning. Gorgeous. A little later it cleared up and we were treated to 3 simultaneous fireworks displays from the towns below, as well as a lightning storm and a beautiful bright moon and lots of stars. This happened all at the same time! After that we went to bed, really tired from the day. The students and I shared a large bunk type room that was meant for 8 people (there were 6 girls plus me, 7 of us in all). There was an upper and a lower room and we had the upper. The 7 of us were squeezed in very tight, I don't see how we could have had an 8th person, and keep in mind, 6 of the 7 people were tiny Japanese girls! Any way, it was not a good sleep for me, it was very warm, a little noisy (because of all the other people in the surrounding bunks) and we had our heads the opposite way that I wanted to sleep. In the middle of the night I ended up turning around. I slept a little better after that. The senseis (teachers) shared a bunk room meant for 4 people next to us. I imagine they were much more comfortable than we were. I'm not sure how far we travelled, I think it was around 15 km though.

Day 4: The Descent

Wake up call was a bit later on this morning, 5 am. We had breakfast at 5:15 am. It was salmon, hibiki (seaweed, with beans and lotus root), pickles, eggs, rice and miso soup. After breakfast there was an optional climb back up to Mt. Tsubakuro, to see it in nice weather. I and the climbing sensei, Taguchi sensei went, the students were all too tired, and the other teacher was also suffering too. So we made the ascent together and we did it quite quickly, in 19 minutes, as opposed to the usual 30 minutes. This time I brought my camera. The views from the peak were gorgeous in the early morning light. We descend quickly too, the whole trip, up and down took 40 minutes, with time spent for pictures and conversation at the top. The usual time is 1 hour up and down again. Shows how slow the students are ;p When we returned to the lodge, we picked up our packs, took some final photos and left. Our trip was downhill the whole way- 5.5 km in length and 1600 m elevation drop. Our final destination was Nakabusa Onsen, for a much needed bath. We hadn't bathed since the first night. Everyone was looking and smelling a little worse for wear... We made the club down in about 3.5 hours. It was tough, my legs were like jelly by the end and everyone was walking funny. For the final stretch, the students and I ran to the Onsen, it's our usual way to end a hike, by running down the last bit and ending on a high note. At the Onsen, we showered and soaked in the hot spring water and ate lunch. Then we caught our bus down to Hotaka city. Once we got their my cellphone once again had reception. Back to civilization! I have to admit it was nice not to have cellphone reception in the mountains. It was a true getaway into nature. Our trip home started at 12:30 pm and I didn't get home until 10 pm, thanks to stupid JR trains. All but one train we took were delayed. It was very frustrating and tiring. I hate travelling during Obon. 

It was a really fun trip and I got to connect with the students in ways that we don't often get to do. I'm very pleased I could go. At first, I was worried because it is technically against the rules, since it is a liability. I'm not an actual teacher, nor am I covered by insurance in the same manner as Japanese teachers are. The Kyoto sensei didn't want me to go (because if something happens, it falls on him), but the hiking sensei wanted me there, so in the end it was agreed that I would "meet the group by coincidence." I have to wonder though, if I didn't go, it would have been 2 male teachers with 6 female students. A little inappropriate... I can't imagine that would fly in North America. 

Pictures to follow!